Ten Grand (2 page)

Without moving his head, the man swiveled his eyes to the right to their full extent, looked along the rocky bed and saw the diamond-back approaching. The snake seemed unaware of the man stretched across its path, saw him merely as a low obstacle to its progress. If it did see glistening beads of sweat ooze from wide open pores and form into rivulets to cut irregular courses across dust streaked flesh, it chose to ignore them. It moved at a regular, unhurried pace, muscles expanding and contracting to inch its thick length across the broken surface, cold eyes blinking, forked tongue flicking out through half-opened jaws in which its venomous fangs glinted.

The man, his muscles aching with the strain of their enforced quiescence, his crowded lungs gaining only slight relief as he allowed stale air to trickle out through his nostrils, watched the snake without fear but with a deep respect for the reptile’s ability to kill him.

The diamond-back had reached him now, raised its head to survey the extent of the obstruction. The man watched the tiny eyes, could sense the working of the reptilian brain which decided after several moments of thought that it was easier to slither up and over rather than by-pass the obstacle. The decision taken, the snake chose a course across the man’s chest and his eyes swiveled in their sockets, watching the head, fighting the urge to blink as saline sweat spread over the irises. The dry warmth of the reptile’s body penetrated the man’s shirt, threatening to cause an involuntary quiver of his flesh. Then the snake’s head found the rocks on the other side of the man and the animal seemed anxious to get clear, began to drag itself along at a faster rate, the frequency of the tail rattle increasing.

The man allowed his pent-up breath to escape more rapidly, felt the first tremor of dizziness just as the snake slithered clear of him. He remained immobile a moment longer, sucked a great gust of clean air into his aching lungs and sprang to his feet, ignoring the needles of pain that jabbed his face. The rattler heard and saw the movement, and its head came up and turned, mouth gaping, fangs glistening. Instinctively the man’s hand went for a gun, his face twisting into silent rage as he found the holster empty. His left hand tried for the knife at the small of his back and the vacant sheath raised a roar of frustration to his throat. The rattler began to coil the length of its body, head swaying, tongue flicking, eyes unblinking.

It was as fearless as the man, with its own brand of animal respect for threatened danger. Then there was a blur of motion, the man crouching to snatch up a rock with his left hand as his right streaked to the back of his neck. The rock left his hand with enormous force, smashing into the coil of body, causing the diamond-back to writhe in agony. Then the man was out of the crouch, leaping forward with feet together, the heels of his boots landing with a terrific impact upon the snake’s neck. Then, as the reptile struggled to twist, to strike at vulnerable flesh, the man’s right hand swung down, the blade of an open razor sliding from the finger tips. The edge, keened to a perfect sharpness, sliced through the neck of the snake with hardly a slowing of its momentum to indicate it had passed through solid matter. The headless body of the reptile gave one convulsive jerk of dying tissue and was still.

The man, who had been born with a full name but who was now called ‘Edge’ stood for several seconds on the dead body of the diamond-back, then wiped the blade of the razor clean of blood on his pants’ leg before returning it to the neck pouch. Then he looked around him, eyes narrowed against the hard brightness of the sun, rested upon a deep patch of shadow thrown by a large boulder. As he finally moved, dragging heavy feet, towards the shade, the sunlight glinted on the tin star pinned to his shirt front.

He eased his tense, aching body to the ground and sighed, his features set into a hard expression of bitter pensiveness as he recalled the events of the morning

CHAPTER TWO

PEACEVILLE, Arizona Territory had lived up to its new name during the four weeks in which the man called Edge had been temporary sheriff. As the days went lazily by, the physical and mental wounds Edge had suffered in avenging the death of his brother had healed. (
See:
Edge: The Loner.
)
 He spent his days either behind the desk in the sheriff’s office, or patrolling the two streets that formed the town. He spoke little to anyone and his demeanor was such that few were moved to open conversations with him. He ate regularly, three square meals a day, at the restaurant owned by the Mexican nicknamed Honey and the only relationship he had with anybody in depth involved Gail, the beautiful waitress who tended tables at the restaurant. It she was who became a willing receptacle for his infrequent bouts of sexual passion. It was her softly firm body, large-breasted, narrow-waisted and strongly-hipped that suffered the savage onslaught of his hard maleness: submitting with the compliance of a deeply eager love to a man she knew to be devoid of emotion.

For Edge was a man who only took and never gave. He was as content as such a man could ever be; eating, sleeping, loving and getting paid three dollars a day for work that was never more demanding than a simple nightly task of arresting the town drunk and throwing him into one of three cells at the rear of the sheriff’s office. Until El Matador and his group of twenty bandits crossed the border from the Mexican province of Sonora and blew a hole in the rear safe of Norman Chase’s bank.

They came at dawn, riding at a gallop until they sighted the town, its buildings rising up off the desert floor to provide a man-made scar on the desolate landscape. They were all big men, except one. Dressed in white pants and shirts, crisscrossed by heavily-laden bandoliers, with mustached faces shaded by large sombreros, they rode with rifles carried in hands and many sported naked swords slid through waistbands. The small man was the leader, El Matador—The Killer. He was no more than five feet tall, with a stocky build that hinted at a wiry strength without advertising aggression. But his young face—he was not yet twenty-five—mirrored the events of a crowded and violent youth that had earned him his
nom de guerre.
It was a face of undisguised evil, evident in the widely-set eyes and, twisted mouth, the firm jaw-line scarred by a diagonal knife wound and the overall set of the features aged into a permanent expression of hate for everything and everybody.

He rode a magnificent white stallion at the head of the column of men and was dressed like the others. But his weapons were different. He carried a Turkish-made blunderbuss with a rosewood stock beautifully inlaid with silver and in holsters at each hip were slung twin American Colt Army Model revolvers.

As soon as she saw the buildings of Peaceville take form in the grey light of dawn he raised a hand and his men obediently slowed their horses to the pace set by the white stallion. Miguel, who was an enormously fat man with bulbous cheeks and a gold ring in his right ear, and acted as El Matador’s lieutenant, cantered forward from the column to ride beside his leader.  

“How much you think is in the Peaceville bank?” he asked in Spanish.

Matador drew in his cheeks and sucked upon them for a few moments, staring ahead. “A great deal,” he replied at length. “The gringos in Washington offer much money to bounty hunters who capture outlaws. The hunters demand quick payment. They will not wait. Much money will be there.”

Miguel laughed raucously, “But it will not be bounty hunters who get it, El Matador.”

The bandit leader seldom laughed and when Miguel recognized upon the evil face an expression which indicated El Matador was thinking, he reined in his own horse, dropped back to his position in the line. When the group were within a quarter mile of the town their leader signaled they should dismount and the men did so, listened attentively to the instructions they were given. Then they split into three groups, two of nine and one of three: the smallest comprised Matador, Miguel and an older, pock-marked man named Torres. One of the large groups moved off first, leading their horses at a steady run in a wide circle that would take them to the other side of Peaceville. When they had almost reached their position, the trio set off in a direct line for town and as Soon as they were seen to reach the wall of the first building the second large group closed in.

The sun had not yet showed itself over the mountain range far in the east and no citizen of Peaceville was even close to stirring in preparation for the new day. The only living thing which moved on the street was a large white dog, which growled a token threat and then returned to its scavenging as the trio of Mexican bandits ducked into the alley beside the bank, whispering softly to their horses to prevent them being spooked by the surrounding silence. In the alley, Miguel handed the reins of his mount to Matador, then took up a position from which he could survey the sheet, his Colt Revolving rifle cocked and ready.

Behind the bank building, Matador led all three horses towards a tall cactus and hitched the reins over a side shoot. Then he watched with glinting eyes as Torres moved towards the bank wall, drawing a large pouch from under his shirt. He placed this at the foot of the adobe wall, grunted and moved it a few inches to the left. Then he stood and backed away, began to whisper quietly to the horses. Matador nodded to him and withdrew one of the Colts, pursed his lips to emit a low whistle. Down at the mouth of the alley Miguel raised his free hand to signal that the men were in position.

Matador crouched and fired and the powder-filled pouch exploded with a roar, sending flames and, dense smoke skywards, tearing great chunks of adobe from the wall. The horses panicked but were held fast by the cactus as Matador and Torres moved through the reeking smoke, began tearing aside loose masonry to enlarge the hole. Out on the street hoofbeats began to resound between the facades of buildings as the two groups of riders galloped into town from each end, firing without aiming at windows and doors as the rudely awakened citizens scrambled from their beds. One bullet smashed through a cabin window and imbedded itself harmlessly into the dirt floor but a shard of flying glass skimmed across the room, buried its pointed end into the side of a man’s neck, severing an artery and drawing a gush of blood. A whore threw open a window on the second floor of the Rocky Mountain Saloon and as she craned out to see what was happening had the whole left side of her face blown away when a heavy caliber shell tore into the flesh. Her naked body fell through the window, bounced off the roof of the sidewalk below and landed on the street to be trampled by galloping hoofs. Norman Chase, who had been rocked from sleep with the certain knowledge that his bank was the source of the explosion, rushed from the New York Hotel in his nightshirt, firing wildly with a pepper-box, screaming abuse at the invaders. A laughing bandit, shirt wide open to reveal a heavily scarred chest, steered his horse into a wide turn, drawing his ivory-hilted sword. The blade flashed in the first rays of the morning sun and sliced off the crown of Chase’s head like a knife peeling an apple.

Edge came awake with the roar of the exploding powder, hand going instinctively to the twelve shot Henry repeater rifle beneath the bunk in the open cell at the back of the sheriff’s office. But before he was halfway across the office feet thudded on to the sidewalk outside as two bandits leapt from their horses. The door was kicked open and two shots whined through the gap, clanged against the cell bars. Edge dived for the floor as the town drunk died with a ricochet burning a course through his open mouth and into his brain.

“We will kill you if you so much as blink an eyelid, señor,” a flat voice said in accented English.

Edge stayed flat against the floor. “My nose itches,” he said, against the racket of gunfire from the street, punctuated by the death scream of Norman Chase.

“Scratch and you won’t itch nowhere no more,” came the reply, and the footfalls came into the office. Three dollars a day wasn’t worth dying for, so Edge did not move as the men approached him, one taking the Henry from his hand, the other lowering a rifle muzzle to nudge him behind the left ear. It was hot from firing and singed Edge’s neck hair.

“Get up slow, señor,” he was told. “Like you were in a tub of black treacle.”

Edge did so, heard a grunt and felt the knife snatched from its sheath at the back of his belt. Edge only removed his clothes and weapons when he took a bath or made love. He looked into the grinning face of each Mexican, saw in their dark eyes the enjoyment they were deriving from the violence and their triumph. They were hopeful he would make a play. One of them took a cigarillo from behind his ear, ignited it: took a fresh one and lodged it in the resting place vacated by the first. “We are robbing the bank,” the other one said in a conversational tone as the shooting died down outside, finally ended.

“Never did trust those places,” Edge said. “Bankers ain’t going to do much to protect other people’s money.”

“You’re the law, you should protect the bank,” the man with the cigarillo pointed out.